


Bury Me in Memory

by orphan_account



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Ghost!Pete, M/M, eventual smut but it’s not good or detailed, everyone is depressed, ghost au, im not tagging the Best Buy incident but, obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 09:05:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16472633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The day Pete died, Patrick lost his best friend. Or maybe the love of his life, if he was willing to admit that. He missed Pete so much he wouldn’t have been surprised if he went insane over it.Still, Pete’s ghost showing up manages to still be pretty surprising.





	Bury Me in Memory

February 10th, 2005.

It was supposed to be a normal day. The first normal day in a while. The band had just gotten back to Chicago after spending nearly a month in LA recording their new album. But the album wasn’t going to come out until summer. Right now, they just had to get back into their normal routine. They were supposed to meet at Joe’s house to practice and hopefully get the new songs down before they started touring again. They were supposed to go out and get pizza for lunch, their first meal together that hadn’t been either eaten in an airport or delivered to a hotel room since they’d left town a month ago. Patrick was supposed to meet Pete at a coffee shop afterwards. Pete hadn’t specified the reason, just winked and nodded and asked him if he could make it.

It never would have even crossed Patrick’s mind that Pete would be the one not to make it to that date.

 _Not a date_ , Patrick kept telling himself. It hurt a little less if he didn’t think of it as a date. This awful, heart-crushing situation was made just a little better if Patrick told himself that there was nothing between him and Pete, that Pete never meant anything to him.

He knew he was lying to himself. The sting of losing Pete-regrettably the love of his life-was so painful Patrick would do anything to take the pain of it away.

On that cold, cold February day-the ninth, it was the ninth. The morning of the tenth soon enough, but everything began on the ninth. They’d all met in the bookstore-that same bookstore where Patrick had first spoken to Pete. It was fitting, or rather, fittingly cruel, that this would also be the last place he ever spoke to him face-to-face. The band had the chance to settle in again after returning from LA, and they’d come to the bookstore to hang out and catch up and discuss the next few days.

They needed to start practicing ASAP. That was something everyone agreed on. They’d have to be able to play their new songs perfectly by the time they starting touring in the summer, and the sooner they got started, the better.

The pizza was just for fun. A symbolic commemoration of the new era, the new album, the new everything.

And Pete, fucking _Pete._ The memory of his adorable little face smiling sweetly at Patrick as Pete invited him for coffee once Joe and Andy had left cut into Patrick’s mind, bringing tears to his eyes. He’d seemed fine. The dark patches under his eyes that had been so omnipresent while they were recording in LA had begun to disappear. He’d washed his hair-what had previously been a greasy mat that vaguely resembled an emo haircut was once again the soft mane of curls that Patrick knew so well. He’d actually done his makeup, rather than just lazily smudging eyeliner around his eyes. Patrick hated to admit that he looked beautiful. And _happy_. For the first time in a long while, Pete actually looked okay.

But somehow, he’d snapped. In just the short few hours between the late afternoon of the ninth and the early, early morning of the tenth, something had happened that shook Pete up so much he completely broke. Somewhere between the warm, cozy bookstore and the cold, dark parking lot, something had gone horribly wrong.

And that was the first and only thing on Patrick’s mind on February 10th, 2005. It was all he could think about as he sat, sobbing, on the dirty asphalt of the Best Buy parking lot, holding Pete’s limp body in his arms. It was all he could think about as he drove home, playing the fated phone call that had brought him to the parking lot over and over again in his mind. Every sniffle, every sob, every cry of “I love you” and “I’m sorry” repeated in his head like a broken record. He hated it so much, that the only part of Pete he could remember was his final sorrowful wails over the phone. And his body, cold and dead in Patrick’s lap, soft hair still soft, beautiful makeup still beautiful, but with glazed-over eyes and a disturbing emptiness in his chest where there had once been a beating heart. Patrick couldn’t shake those things as he crawled back into bed, lying down on the mattress and wrapping himself up in the quilt. The smell of Pete’s hoodie lingered on his clothes-a sweet combination of cologne and cheese pizza and the kind of fruity packaged drink Pete loved but Patrick would never touch. It made him feel sick.

It was three in the morning when Patrick got home. He’d called Joe and Andy and everyone he had in his phone who knew Pete and told them to go to that parking lot and do something. Then he’d left. He couldn’t stay in that cursed place any longer. He’d stayed in bed until three in the afternoon. He just couldn’t bring himself to move. The horrible truth weighed him down like a rock.

Pete was gone. Dead.

Patrick knew he needed to get up at some point. Eat something, at least. Just because Pete was dead didn’t mean he could let himself rot away, no matter how much he wanted to.

The smell of peanut butter and old Chinese takeout in the kitchen didn’t do anything to better Patrick’s appetite. He wished more than anything that he could be in a pizza restaurant, sitting at a table sharing an extra-large deep-dish pie with his best friends. All three of them. Andy, Joe, and Pete. Especially Pete.

Patrick found himself on the floor of the kitchen, staring down at the dirty tiles, thinking about Pete again. He missed him so much. He’d give anything to see him again, alive and smiling. But the image of his body kept coming back to Patrick’s mind. Cold, dead hands that had once been warm and gentle and had strummed an electric bass along with Patrick’s words. And sometimes they’d even been his own words, only sung by Patrick. Those words tasted differently; they were thick with sorrow and longing. Patrick wished he could have felt any of those powerful feelings in Pete back in that parking lot, but there was nothing but cold and emptiness. What he had held in that moment was nothing but a shell. All of the Pete he knew had been sucked out, replaced with the little blue pills that had previously filled the little orange container which was now sitting on the passenger seat of Pete’s car.

“Fuck!” Patrick screamed aloud, slamming his hands onto the tile. It hurt, but the pain was completely overshadowed by the powerful ache in his heart. “I loved you! I loved you, you stupid, perfect, adorable motherfucker! What happened? Why did you have to fucking do this?” He slammed his fists on the floor again with every other word, loud enough that he was sure the neighbors could hear. Whatever. Let them call the cops, let them lock him up in an insane asylum for the rest of his life. Not like the band would suffer. Everyone knew it was already gone, killed alongside Pete.

Patrick’s knuckles were bruised and bleeding. He didn’t care. He couldn’t bring himself to care about anything. An open jar of peanut butter sat on the counter. Patrick grabbed a spoon and ate the peanut butter out of the jar. There was nothing that could stop him. In that moment, he felt like he’d lost everything. His best friend was dead. His band was doomed. He didn’t have the skills to get a real job. His parents wouldn’t let him move back in if he wanted to. So he had been reduced to the weird neighbor who sits on his kitchen floor screaming about dead people and eating peanut butter straight out of the jar. What else could he be now, honestly?

His phone buzzed, scooting across the counter as it vibrated. Patrick barely managed to catch it before it fell on the floor. He flipped it open and answered, his mouth still full of peanut butter.

“What.”

“Patrick, it’s Joe.”

Shit. It wasn’t like Patrick didn’t want to see his friends, or talk to them, or whatever. Mostly it was that he only wanted to hear from one person right then, and that person was never coming back.

“Joe…” Patrick sighed. He didn’t have anything to say.

“Are you okay? You didn’t meet us for pizza.”

“I had no idea you were still going. Considering your friend just died.”

“Look, I know. It’s awful. But Andy and I figured we’d go anyway. Try and cheer each other up. Barring that, drown our sorrows in pizza. We were just hoping you’d at least show up. Have a good cry with us, you know?”

Patrick sniffled embarrassingly. Just the mention of crying was making him cry.

“Yeah. I know. I’m sorry.”

“Are you sure you don’t want someone to at least come over? It doesn’t have to be me, if you’d rather talk to Andy-“

“Look, I know you mean well, but I’m actually sitting on my kitchen floor in my pajamas eating peanut butter out of the jar right now. So I really don’t need anyone to see me like this.”

“Damn. Did you just wake up?”

“No. Been up since-since I-since the…” Patrick trailed off. Hot tears rushed down his cheeks, and he couldn’t bear to say it. Saying it would make it too real.

“Since you went to find Pete?”

Patrick nodded. He knew Joe couldn’t see him over the phone, but he couldn’t do anything else. The only thing that came out when he opened his mouth were harsh sobs.

“Man, I’m so sorry,” Joe said. Patrick could hear him getting choked up over the phone. It was so weird to hear Joe even get close to crying. Patrick always thought of Pete and himself as the emotional ones-he’d maybe seen Joe cry, like, once. And it was probably just a few tears over some movie. But this wasn’t just some movie. This was real. Too real.

“I’m gonna hang up now,” Patrick whimpered. He ended the call without even waiting for Joe to say anything else.

Patrick couldn’t even bring himself to pick up the spoon again. He just sat on the floor, open container of peanut butter in his lap, sobbing his eyes out. There was nothing he could do but cry. Big, ugly tears kept on flowing from his eyes. After a very long time, his eyes stung and his throat ached and his bruised hands weren’t exactly doing any better. Then, out of seemingly nowhere, Patrick called Joe back.

“One more thing,” he said sombrely.

“What is it?”

“Pete’s hoodie.” Patrick choked on the phrase. He couldn’t even say the name Pete without everything flooding back into his head.

“What about it? You want it?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you take it when you found him last night?”

“What, you think I was honestly going to loot my best friend’s corpse at two in the fucking morning?” Patrick heard himself getting angry, and he hated himself for it, but he couldn’t control himself. That had also been lost.

“No. I’m sorry. I can ask around if you really want it. I mean, it’s probably his parents that have it, and I don’t want to take it from them if they want it. He was… he was their kid. I can’t imagine.”

“Just get me the hoodie.” Both of them were getting choked up by then. It was better to end the call as soon as possible.

“I’ll try, ‘Ricky,” Joe promised. Then he hung up the phone.

That last word felt like an arrow through Patrick’s heart. Only Pete had ever called him Ricky. He had no idea when Joe had picked it up, but he was hoping to never hear it again. Just the memory of that name, of it warmly flowing through Pete’s lips as he held tightly to Patrick was far too painful now.

Pete had insisted on having some kind of pet name for Patrick, practically from the moment they met. The implications of Pete taking an immediate interest in Patrick weren’t something Patrick really cared about now, but he liked to think he was just trying to be sweet. Patrick had been, of course, the little underdog of their band: both physically the smallest and the newest addition to the friend group. It was only natural for Pete to take him under his wing.

“You can’t call me Pat. That’s my mom’s name,” Patrick had explained.

“What about… Trick? Tricky?” Pete had mused in that deep, whimsical voice of his that had captivated a young Patrick so well.

“What about just Rick?”

“That’s an old man’s name, Patrick,” Pete had laughed. His laugh was good, too: low and full and pure. Thinking about that laugh made Patrick tear up. He’d never hear it again.

“Whatever. Just do what you want,” Patrick had said, because he just couldn’t say no to Pete.

“Alright, Ricky,” Pete had said with a smile. And the nickname had felt right, especially from Pete’s mouth, all syrupy sweet in the way Pete rarely said things but said them so well when he did.

Patrick would come to hear that name a lot over the next few years-in praise (you did so good, Ricky), in worried late-night conversations (Ricky, I’m scared about this thing), even in passing murmurs that he hoped were true (I love you, Ricky). It was usually accompanied by, at the very least, an arm around Patrick’s shoulder. If Patrick was really lucky it was accompanied by a hug. The name made him feel warm and safe and comfortable-it was something he and Pete had shared, something unique to their relationship.

So when Pete died, Patrick never expected to hear that name again. And when he did, it just further burned the thought into his soul that he was never going to hear Pete say it, ever again. He was never going to hear it lovingly whispered into his ear as the two of them laid side-by-side in a motel bed, or gently muttered in his direction whenever he did something Pete found cute. There was nothing like that anymore. Patrick would never again feel that warm, soft feeling of that name flying from Pete’s mouth and gracefully into his ear. And it hurt so fucking bad.

Patrick must have sat on the floor for hours, just staring at the space under the fridge, trying not to think about anything. His face was heavily stained with tears, and his eyes were so swollen and red from crying that he could barely close them. This was truly the worst day of Patrick’s life. Not only that, there wasn’t really any way his life could get worse. Losing Pete was literally the worst thing that could ever happen to Patrick. And that was exactly what had happened. Was he just unlucky? Was the universe trying to spite him for something he did?

Fuck, was it something he did? Had he said something that pushed Pete over the edge?

Had he forgotten to tell Pete how pretty he looked when he had walked into the bookstore with his eyeliner perfectly applied for the first time in ages? Was he too dismissive about the coffee shop invitation, not realizing it was a real date? Not realizing how much Pete really loved him and cared about him? Hell, had he ever acknowledged how much Pete really loved and cared about him? Patrick desperately retraced his steps leading up to the tenth of February, trying to figure out what had happened to Pete. But there was nothing. It really did seem like Pete had just snapped.

The doorbell rang. Patrick sluggishly got up and went to answer it. He really didn’t feel like talking to anyone.

But when he opened the door and saw Joe standing outside in the dark, cold February night, illuminated only by the streetlights, Patrick immediately jumped up and hugged him. He was still in his pajamas, and the frigid air sent a chill down his spine as he stepped onto the porch, but he didn’t care.

“Aww, Patrick,” Joe mumbled, gently rubbing Patrick’s back with a mitten-covered hand. “I’m so sorry all of this happened.”

“Me too,” Patrick said shakily. “I just don’t know what happened.”

“No one else seems to know either. I talked to his parents. They know about as much as we do.”

“What do you mean?”

Joe released Patrick from the hug. He held out something soft and bright red-Pete’s hoodie.

“You got it for me.”

“I did,” Joe said, smiling. “When I went to his parents’ house to pick it up, I asked them if they knew what happened to Pete. They told me they had no idea. It just seemed like he was fine one moment, and the next…”

“Yeah,” Patrick sighed. He carefully took the hoodie from Joe, as if handling it too aggressively would cause it to fall to pieces. It still smelled like Pete-cologne and pizza and fruity drink. Patrick feels it to his chest, drinking in the smell and feeling the warmth of it against him. It was comforting, yet incredibly somber-last time he’d seen the thing was when it was being worn by a dead body in his arms.

“Are you sure they were okay with me taking it?” Patrick asked.

“Yeah. They were pretty understanding. It seemed like they wanted to get rid of a lot of his stuff anyway.”

“I get that. I mean, when you lose someone, you don’t want to be reminded of them all the time.”

Joe nodded pensively. “But you still want the hoodie, right?”

“Of course,” Patrick said, half to himself. “I want to keep him with me.”

“Okay. Just… take care of yourself, alright? Try and eat something that’s not peanut butter.”

“I’ll try,” Patrick told him, smiling half heartedly.

Joe stepped off the porch and walked to his car with his hands in the pockets of his coat. Patrick stepped back inside, closing the door behind him.

He immediately took the opportunity to put on Pete’s hoodie. It didn’t fit him perfectly, which was to be expected. Patrick had to leave it unzipped, but that was okay. Immediately he felt a little warm inside, like he was with Pete again, and Pete was holding him close and protecting him and they were together and everything was perfect and safe...

Patrick was crying again. He just couldn’t stop. It was to be expected, on the worst day of his life, but that didn’t make it any less horrible. Patrick pulled the hood over his head, burying himself in the smell of-

Strawberry. That was what that fruity drink was-some kind of strawberry juice thing that Pete for whatever reason loved so much. The reason was beyond Patrick, they weren’t alcoholic in the slightest and they smelled like chemicals and perfume, but Pete seemed to love them. His fridge had at one point held only a case of those strawberry drinks and a box of pre-made PB&J sandwiches. Patrick would have probably laughed thinking about it, if every memory of Pete wasn’t so painful.

Even though he’d always made fun of Pete for them, Patrick suddenly needed to buy some of those strawberry drinks. He wasn’t even sure why, just that he needed them. He had promised Joe he’d eat something other than peanut butter and, well, artificial juice drinks weren’t peanut butter, although that probably wasn’t what Joe meant. But Patrick didn’t care. He slipped on a pair of shoes and drove out, in his pajamas and Pete’s hoodie, towards the grocery store.

The store was open 24 hours, but Patrick had never seen anyone enter after about six at night. Maybe the occasional group of drunk frat boys, but that was all. All the better for him, really-he wasn’t exactly looking forward to having to walk around a public place in his pajamas and the hoodie of his dead friend. Luckily for him, the only current inhabitants of the store seemed to be a few lone cashiers and some other employee who was sorting through a display of fruit, none of whom paid him any kind. Patrick just walked straight forward, passing aisle after aisle, trying to find those elusive gross drinks.

“If you’re looking for condoms, they’re in aisle ten,” said a voice from behind.

Patrick really didn’t have the energy to deal with bratty kids, so he turned around slowly with the intention of simply telling whoever it was to leave him alone.

Upon turning around, however, Patrick nearly fell to the ground.

A man just a bit taller than Patrick stood in front of him. His skin was a soft shade of golden-brown, his hair was dark and curly, he wore a pair of black jeans and a plain gray t-shirt. He wore a smug look on his face, and-Patrick adjusted his glasses more than once after noticing this one-he seemed to have some kind of glowing aura surrounding him. He looked at Patrick with glazed-over eyes, which Patrick initially wrote off as just tiredness before realizing just how unsettling those eyes looked. They looked… dead.

“Hey, is that my hoodie?” asked the man in a voice that was all too familiar.

“What kind of sick joke is this?” Patrick asked sternly, backing away from the man and further into the aisle.

“It’s not a joke! I swear!” The man followed Patrick. Patrick didn’t acknowledge him, he simply turned around and kept walking.

“Ricky, wait. Please.”

Patrick turned around to face him once again. _It’s not really him_ , he told himself. _It can’t possibly be_.

“What the hell do you want?”

“What are you looking for?”

“I-I’m looking for these drinks. Strawberry flavored. Smell like nail polish and factory runoff. Same color as this hoodie.”

“Those drinks you always made fun of me for?”

Patrick stopped in his tracks.

“Yeah.”

“I can show you where they are.”

Patrick didn’t have anything better to do. He followed the man down a few aisles and to an aisle covered wall to wall with colorful drinks-Kool-aid, fruit punch, soda, all those drinks Patrick wouldn’t have been allowed to have as a kid and probably didn’t taste very good anyway.

Pete-no, not Pete, Patrick wouldn’t let himself believe that-lead him to the end of the aisle to a shelf of boxes which advertised a disgusting-looking colored drink that appeared to be exactly the kind Patrick had remembered.

“These?”

“Yeah, actually. How did you know?”

“Come on, Patrick. It’s me! Pete!”

“That’s impossible,” Patrick said firmly as he grabbed a box of the strawberry flavored juice. “Pete is dead. I held his fucking corpse in my arms. I’ve already been having the worst day of my life, so just cut the bullshit and leave me alone, will you?”

“Patrick, come on. What more can I do to prove this to you?”

“You want me to believe you’re a ghost.”

“Yeah, I guess that is what I am.”

“How did you get here?”

“I-I don’t remember. I just remember crying in my car, waiting to die, and then everything goes dark, and I think to myself ‘thank God, finally I’m free’, but then soon enough I wind up standing around in this grocery store. And then a few minutes later, you walk in.”

“Hmm…” Patrick thought to himself. He wanted to believe so badly that this really was Pete, somehow reanimated as a ghost. It seemed so impossible, but he wanted it so badly. And besides, there really was no other explanation for the glow, considering his glasses were indeed working properly.

“Please, Patrick. I’m so sorry. I’m just so glad to see you again.”

“Alright. Fine. I’ll take you to my house and you can stay with me. But you’re going to have to tell me what happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. Why you decided to go and end your own life. And break my fucking heart.”

Pete stared at Patrick sadly.

“Sorry,” Patrick mumbled. “I know it’s not about me.”

“Oh my God, Patrick, I’m so sorry,” Pete said sincerely.

“You better be,” Patrick replied, leaning into Pete for a hug. To his surprise, he didn’t phase through him. Instead, Pete responded by wrapping his own arms around Patrick, and the two hugged for a very long time. “I fucking missed you, dumbass.”

“I missed you too, Ricky,” Pete said, sweet as honey. That voice sent a shiver down Patrick’s spine. It was just so… sensual. It made Patrick feel like he knew something secret just upon hearing it.

“Let’s go, Pete,” Patrick said. He finally let himself believe it. This really was Pete, and they were together again, and everything was okay.

Patrick bought the drinks using one of the self-checkout aisles. He still couldn’t bear to face another person, everything was making him feel so much and he was afraid he’d break into laughter or tears or something the moment he tried to talk to someone. For a moment he wondered if the other people around him could see Pete. He wasn’t really sure how ghosts worked, exactly, but the fact that no one seemed to be reacting to the glowing man following him around was pretty telling.

A thought crossed Patrick’s mind. Maybe this Pete wasn’t really there. Maybe he was seeing things, maybe his grief had actually driven him insane. It wasn’t much of a stretch.

 _No_ , Patrick thought. _He has to be real. I hugged him, I felt him, he has to be real_.

Pete sat in the passenger seat while Patrick drove the two of them back to his house. He still wore a seatbelt, even though he was, well, dead, and didn’t really have to worry about dying anymore. Patrick still didn’t offer to give him his hoodie back. If this Pete wasn’t real, at least that hoodie was still something. He’d still have his best friend with him, always.

The two slowly stepped out of Patrick’s car and walked up the driveway to his front door through the chilly February air. Patrick shivered, pulling Pete’s jacket more tightly around himself. Pete didn’t seem to notice. This could be chocked up to him being a ghost, but Pete had never been too bothered by the cold anyway, so Patrick had no clue.

As soon as they were inside and out of the cold, Patrick set the box of juice on the counter and lead Pete up to his room. Pete immediately took a seat on Patrick’s bed, taking the opportunity to make himself comfortable. Patrick sat down next to him. The soft glow from Pete’s body didn’t do much to light up the dark room, but it did make his body look warm and alive. It was cruel, because this Pete wasn’t alive.

“I don’t think I’ve seen your new house before,” Pete remarked casually.

“You may have come over once. Not up to my room, just like… in the living room. For a jam session or something.”

“Oh yeah. You’re right. It was just the two of us, though, since you don’t have a drum set anymore.”

Patrick had sold his drum set a while ago, so they’d been rehearsing as a band at Joe or Andy’s house most of the time. Still, Patrick enjoyed occasionally inviting Pete over for jam sessions, where Pete would usually show him the new poetry he’d written, and Patrick would sing something-sometimes his words, sometimes Pete’s-and play his guitar. Sometimes Pete brought his bass, but most of the time he just sat and listened to Patrick. That was okay, though. Being together was enough.

And yet somehow, Patrick had been so stupid that he’d never realized the two of them could even be in love.

Were they in love?

“Pete?” he asked. “Did you… love me?”

“What do you mean “did”? I’m right here, Ricky. And of course I love you.”

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said. “I just… you’re…”

“Dead. Yeah. But I’m still here, I guess. I’m talking to you right now.”

“Fuck. This is weird.”

“Yeah.”

“You know I love you too, right?”

“Of course.” Pete scooted a bit closer to Patrick. It was almost the closest he’d ever been to Pete, apart from, well, holding his body. It felt good to be so close to Pete when he was really there, alive. Still, Patrick hadn’t forgotten what he’d asked of Pete when he’d agreed to let him stay the night.

“So why did you do it?” Patrick asked, looking at Pete with eyes that were still bloodshot from crying.

“I… I can’t really remember what exactly happened. I just had an epiphany, I think.”

“And it lead you to kill yourself?”

“Well, no. That was just me being stupid and overthinking something.”

“What was it that you were overthinking?”

“This is going to sound so bad,” Pete began, shaking his head sadly, “but it was you.”

“Did I do something wrong?” All of Patrick’s fears seemed to be being confirmed. He’d killed Pete after all.

“No. The opposite. After the bookstore, I got home, and I looked in the mirror, and I realized something. I was all dolled up and pretty for the first time in so long, I’d actually spent time on my makeup, and, I mean, I didn’t really do my hair but you said you like it curly so that’s okay.”

“I do like it! God, Pete, I thought I told you. I wish I’d told you. You really did look beautiful.”

“Yeah, I hope so. Because I realized I did it for you.”

Patrick was flattered, but also a bit shocked. To think, Pete wanted to look good for him, to impress him. On the one hand, Patrick was more than happy to see Pete looking as pretty as he had in the bookstore the previous day, but on the other hand he didn’t think Pete needed to make an effort. Even back in LA, he’d found Pete beautiful-his greasy hair and smudged eyeliner and dark circles under his eyes only served to enhance that. Pete was already so… perfect.

“So? I like the way you look, Pete.”

“I know,” Pete said, staring down at his own feet. “But I didn’t realize that until it was too late. I was lying awake in bed that night thinking about you. How I’d never be good enough for you, how no matter what I did I would still be gross, no matter how much I tried to fake it my brain would still be fucked up and awful and I’d still be fucking unlovable. And I thought to myself, ‘If I can’t be good enough for Patrick, I don’t want to be here weighing him down’. I didn’t want to hurt you, Ricky! That’s all I wanted. I just wanted to keep you safe from me.”

“But you did hurt me,” Patrick shot back. He hugged his knees to his chest, avoiding Pete’s gaze. “I was tearing myself apart over you. I held your body in my arms and I cried because I thought I’d lost you forever. I took your hoodie because I wanted you with me, I couldn’t let you go, I needed you. I still need you, Pete.”

“I know that now. I know what I did was stupid. And I’m here now, so you can have me.”

“I’m glad,” Patrick conceded. He put an arm around Pete’s shoulder and pulled him in close to himself. He loved Pete so much, he wanted to hold him close and keep him forever. Losing him once was too much to bear. Now Patrick would never let Pete get lost again.

“I’m sorry I fucked up,” Pete muttered. “Sorry I’m a horrible person.”

“Pete, you’re not horrible! Don’t be like that.”

“Don’t you see though, Patrick? Maybe you would be better off without me.”

Patrick pulled Pete in closer. He rested his head on Pete’s shoulder and nuzzled into Pete’s neck. It wasn’t nearly as cozy as Patrick had always imagined it being. Pete’s skin, despite its warm-looking glow, was cold and unwelcoming. His pulse was disturbingly absent, and when Patrick wrapped his arms around him in a hug, he noticed the clear lack of a heartbeat in his chest. He felt the same way he had when Patrick had held his lifeless body in the parking lot.

“No, Pete. I still want you. And I want you alive.”

“I’m right here! I’m not alive, but… I may as well be.”

“No, Pete. Don’t you see? You’re glowing. And have you felt your heartbeat lately?” Patrick pulled away from the hug and stared at Pete. Pete gently put his hand to his chest, his face falling as he realized there was nothing there.

“Oh my god. I fucked up so bad.” Pete put his head in his hands. Big, shimmering tears flowed through the gaps in his fingers and fell onto the sheets of Patrick’s bed. “I’m… dead.”

“You are. And you know what? You can’t take that back.”

“I know. I know. I hate it. I hate being dead. All I wanted was to keep you safe, Patrick. Is that really too much to ask?”

“Oh, Pete. I know you meant well. But it’s too late to change things now. So I guess we can just be happy to at least be able to talk to each other.”

“I guess so.”

“I mean, I still love you.”

“Can we hug again?”

Patrick once again wrapped his arms around Pete, trying to ignore how cold and lifeless he felt. He was still Pete. He was still moving, by all means he was still alive. Except for, well, having a functioning heart and all that stuff.

“If I could bring you back, you can bet I wouldn’t hesitate to do it. I don’t care about the consequences. I want you alive, Pete. You didn’t deserve to go like that, no matter what you think.”

“Ask Hurley about it. Maybe he has some kind of witchcraft books or something.”

“You don’t honestly believe I can bring you back from the dead, do you?”

“It’s worth a shot.”

Patrick sighed. He lied down, and Pete followed him. They pulled the covers over themselves, although Pete did it more so out of habit. The blankets blocked most of the light emanating from Pete, and he simply took the form of a night light of sorts. It was actually almost comforting to Patrick. He hadn’t slept in the same bed as Pete since LA, and even then they’d only shared a bed once, when Pete was feeling really awful. It felt good to be together like that again. Patrick just wished Pete wasn’t so dead.

Patrick had a nightmare that night, because of course he did. He was back in that parking lot, sitting on the asphalt holding Pete’s body in his arms. Pete’s eyes were as glazed over as ever, and he stared up at Patrick with a blank, dead look on his face. A breeze blew, sending a chill up Patrick’s spine. He tried to turn away from Pete, he didn’t want to keep looking into those dead eyes anymore. The wind blew again, somehow knocking over the container of pills lying on the seat of Pete’s car. It was no longer empty in this twisted version of reality, and the little blue tablets flew out at Patrick. And then more came, and more, and Patrick realized it was snowing those awful little pills all over him, pelting him like hailstones. The sickly yellow light of the Best Buy sign flickered like a broken fluorescent light: on… and then off. Over and over, like a clock ticking down the seconds until something happened. Patrick held Pete closer as if trying to shelter his body from the maelstrom of pills. But it was too late. The horrid things had already killed him.

“When will it stop?” Pete said, his voice lower and more gravelly than usual. His mouth moved, but the rest of his body remained limp and deathly.

“I-“ Patrick flinched as one of the hailstone-pills smashed through his glasses, shattering into his eye. He wiped his eye, and hoped the liquid now on his hand was just tears, but he didn’t dare check.

“I don’t want to be like this,” Pete rasped. His voice was strained and desperate. “I want to wake up.”

“Shh, Pete, you’re up, you’re okay,” Patrick said desperately. He knew he was lying. That wasn’t what Pete meant.

“I want to be alive,” Pete cried out. It was a pained and scratchy shout, and it made Patrick feel uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry,” Patrick sighed.

Pete started crying. Tears flowed quickly from his glassy eyes, and laboured sobs emoted from his mouth. Patrick tried to hold him tighter. It didn’t help. The deluge of pills grew stronger and faster, and Patrick too felt like crying just from the pain alone. It was like being pelted with bullets. He wanted to leave, he just wanted it to stop.

He woke up in a cold sweat. He rolled over to Pete, seeking some semblance of comfort.

Pete was gone.

Patrick let out a desperate shout. He couldn’t help himself. He’d thought he’d managed to get Pete back, but it was all a lie. He’d gone and disappeared again and left him all alone. Patrick hated him so much. Or, more accurately, he hated that he loved Pete so much. He pulled Pete’s hoodie around himself looking for some semblance of comfort, inhaling deeply to take in the sweet smells of his lost friend.

It had felt so real last night, when Pete had appeared to him in that store and followed him home and told him he loved him. It had to be. Pete was still out there, wandering the world as a ghost. Or in some sort of purgatory. But Patrick knew he at least wasn’t gone for good. And he had to see him again.

Pete had mentioned the previous night that Andy might have a book or two regarding ghosts, and Pete had to admit it did sound like something Andy would own. Andy wasn’t some kind of dark wizard or anything, but he at least had a passing interest in the occult and paranormal activity and witchcraft and the like. Not that he was superstitious or anything-quite the opposite, in fact. Really, he just found stuff like that fun.

Patrick picked up his phone and dialed Andy’s number. It rang for a while, and he was afraid for a moment that he’d called too early and Andy was still asleep. But soon enough, Andy picked up.

“Hey, Patrick,” he said tiredly.

“Shit, did I wake you up?”

“No, not at all. If I sound weird, it’s just… I’m tired. It’s been tiring.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“How are you holding up?”

“Actually, I…” Patrick contemplated whether or not to tell Andy about Pete’s ghost. Andy was interested in ghosts, sure, but how would he react when Patrick genuinely told him he’d seen one? Would Patrick just seem crazy?

“I bet you miss him a lot. You two were really close.”

“I mean, we weren’t really that close.”

“Oh. Well… Pete-nevermind.”

“No, wait, what are you talking about?”

“I found his diary.”

“His poetry notebook?”

“One of his notebooks, sure. But… I don’t know. It’d probably make things worse if I told you.”

“I don’t think it can get any worse,” Patrick grumbled, actually genuinely curious how as to what Pete had written. Forget ghost books, Patrick had to get his hands on that diary!

“I think he was in love with you.”

“Like… how?”

“Well, he said you were the sweetest thing in his whole life, you lit up his whole world, you know. Mushy romantic Pete stuff. And there was also some… ah. You don’t want to hear it coming from my mouth.”

“What do you mean?” Patrick’s voice became more hushed. He had some ideas as to what Andy meant.

“He… he had quite an imagination, Patrick. Sometimes it was really dirty.”

Patrick felt his face going red. Pete loving him was one thing. Friend love, even romantic love, Patrick could stomach that easily. But the thought that Pete had ever thought about him in that way…

“I-I took it before he died,” Andy explained. “Joe dared me to. We looked through it for a while and then were too embarrassed to give it back. So I still have it now. I’d give it to his parents, but I doubt they want to read through his deepest fantasies about you.”

“Fuck, is that all that’s in that book?”

“Well, no. There’s normal Pete stuff. A lot of really depressing shit. But then there’s the occasional ‘I want Patrick in my ass’. Kind of what you’d expect from Pete.”

Patrick was thrown for an absolute loop by this. He didn’t feel bad about Pete thinking about him that way. Maybe he even wanted it himself; he craved that special kind of intimacy between the two of them. But it didn’t matter now. Even if the ghost Pete did come back, he was still… dead. No matter how much he moved and spoke, that Pete was still a glorified corpse. Gross.

“If you want the diary, I can give it to you. I’ve already read all the good bits.” Patrick shook his head sadly. Sure, there was a really sadistic part of him that wanted that diary. He wanted to stare into the depths of Pete’s mind, into the parts of him that needed those pills in the first place and into the parts that told him to shove them all down his throat. And, as painful as he knew it would be, Patrick wanted to read the parts about him. He wanted to see the loving feelings Pete had felt for him in that book. He wanted to read all those fantasies Pete had about him, he wanted to touch himself to the thoughts of fulfilling them.

But Patrick ignored that sadistic part of himself. He had to remind himself that the Pete he knew was dead, and unless he could bring him back for real, there was no real hope for the two of them being together. Patrick had given up that chance by being too hesitant back when Pete was alive. But he wanted another chance.

“Actually, I was wondering if you had another kind of book. Something about… ghosts. Dead people coming back to life.”

“Patrick, you’re not thinking of-“

“Look, I know what I saw. Pete came to me as a ghost. I just want to know how. Or… if I can make him human again.”

“Patrick, come on. Reading his diary and wearing his hoodie is one thing, but he’s dead, okay? You can’t change that.”

“But I saw him! He talked to me, he hugged me. It was him, I swear. He was real.”

“Patrick, I’m serious. You can’t be like this. Let him go.”

“He’s not gone!”

“Look, I’m sorry. I know this is hard. But you have to face the facts sooner or later.”

“The fact is he’s still out there! Or at least, his spirit is or something.”

“Patrick, stop it. This isn’t healthy. Look, his funeral is in two days. You can come and see him one last time, give him a proper goodbye.”

“This isn’t about a proper goodbye!” Patrick was screaming, he was angry, not just at andy but at Pete and at himself and at the fact that he couldn’t bring back the person he loved the most. “He came back, I swear! He’s out there! And I want him to come back again, I want to make him human again! Just give me a book on it or something.”

“Patrick, I know you miss Pete a lot, but I care about you. I’m not enabling this little psychotic break any further.”

“It’s not a fucking psychotic break!”

“I think it is. You lost someone really important to you, and your brain just broke a little. Or a lot. Depends on how you see it.”

“I’m not broken. I know what I saw.”

“I know you think that, Patrick. The problem is, I can’t believe that. Pete is dead. Just let him stay dead.”

“I never said he wasn’t dead. I just said he isn’t gone.”

“You know what I meant, Patrick. I’m gonna go now. Bye.”

Andy hung up on him quickly. Patrick yelled again, something incoherent that wasn’t really words but more of a fit of anger spewing from his mouth. That wasn’t anything new. He’d done things like that before, shouting angrily and incoherently at or about whatever was pissing him off. That thing was Pete way more often than it should have been. It made Patrick feel sick. He wanted to hold Pete close and apologize for ever shouting at him, for getting upset with him, for hurting him in any way. A part of his brain kept saying _but he deserved it!_ , but Patrick refused to listen.

Fuck, he just wanted Pete back. He wanted to hold him in his arms, to feel his heartbeat against his chest and the warm energy of his body around him. If he could have Pete, alive, with him, he’d do fucking anything. Anything Pete wanted, he’d do it, whether that meant going to one of those crazy hipster coffee places with the weird murals on the wall, or cracking open Pete’s diary and fulfilling every single fantasy laid out in those pages. Whatever Pete wanted as long as it meant being able to keep him.

Since Andy wasn’t any help in the realm of books about raising the dead, Patrick decided to head to the library. Not the bookstore, as he didn’t feel like spending any money and that place held too many raw memories for him. Just the library.

It wasn’t exactly the most expansive library, just a quaint little brick building situated around some other shops and businesses in the more dense part of town. This wasn’t exactly Chicago, just a suburb on the outskirts, so it was fairly quiet despite being in the more packed area.

Patrick felt weird asking an employee about where to find books such as the ones he was looking for, so he just paced the aisles and shelves until he happened upon something that looked promising. It was exactly what you’d expect from a book about bringing people back to life: a black, faux-leather cover with a title in curly gold lettering which read “Communication With and Resurrection Of The Recently Deceased”. A bit of a wordy title, but it seemed like it would get the job done.

Patrick checked out the book in silence. The man at the desk didn’t even question him. Either they carried weirder books than one about resurrecting people, or he was just too tired to give a shit. Patrick didn’t really care which.

As soon as he got home, Patrick began flipping through the book. It lacked a real organisational system, so he had to go through the pages one by one looking for a relevant spell. There were several illustrations which appeared to be done in ink which depicted people wearing long cloaks and spirits which only beared a passing resemblance to Pete’s ghost. They were ugly things, seemingly made out of rotten flesh and some kind of noxious gas. Patrick couldn’t help but worry that Pete’s ghost would decay to that state eventually. All the more reason to bring him back.

Finally Patrick found something that seemed relevant.

“Ritual for Reviving a Deceased Loved One.”

Patrick looked over the ingredients. It seemed fairly simple. An item important to the deceased (Patrick had Pete’s hoodie, and if that was insufficient he could always obtain the diary from Andy). Some herbs which Patrick figures he could find at the supermarket. Some kind of rock or crystal that he figured he could snag off of Andy or one of his friends. The chant included in the book. All of it seemed simple, except the last few requirements.

First off all, Patrick would need access to the body. This would have been helpful to know when he was holding onto Pete’s limp form in the parking lot, but it was too late for that now. The only opportunity Patrick would have to get near Pete’s body again was his funeral. It would be tough, but provided he could set up a significant distraction, he could manage it. Then it was also necessary that at least three people important to the deceased person be present. Patrick figures he’d be one of those people, and the other two would hopefully be fulfilled by the funeral. The hardest part, and also the part that wasn’t exactly listed, was time. Patrick would have to arrange the ritual and complete it, not exactly an instant process, and also hope no one noticed what he was doing.

Whatever. He could manage. It was his only option.

Patrick hopped in his car. He first drove to the store again, the same grocery store where he’d first encountered Pete’s ghost. Most of the herbs were easy to find (just things from the spice aisle), but one of them-marigold-he’d needed to pick up from the very limited selection of flowers that existed in the front of the store. He was lucky it was even there. February isn’t exactly the time for flowers, except for ones that were bright red and meant to be given to lovers. Patrick would have to pick one up for Pete as a late Valentine’s gift if he managed to bring him back.

 _Shit. It might not even work_. Patrick was shaken up by the realization, but he pushed it away. This was his last resort. It just had to work.

He then stopped by Andy’s house. This was going to be a little harder.

Andy answered the door. He didn’t exactly look happy to see Patrick, but Patrick didn’t really care.

“That’s Pete’s hoodie, isn’t it?” Andy asked as he invited Patrick inside. He didn’t sound mad, just… disappointed.

“Yeah. I’m trying to fill my collection. I want everything that ever belonged to Pete Wentz,” Patrick joked. “Just unleashing my inner fangirl.”

“You want his diary?” Andy ignored Patrick’s snarky comments.

Patrick nodded.

“Oh, and, I was reading about… rocks. I hear there's this one that wards off… psychosis? Just wondering if you happen to have one.”

“I can check. What’s the name of it?”

Patrick showed him the name of the rock which he’d written on a post-it. He couldn’t pronounce the thing for his life.

“Yeah, I think I have at least one of those. Never really heard of it doing anything for psychosis though. You know you can just tell me if you want a cool rock, right? It doesn’t have to be a mental health thing.”

“Whatever. It is a cool rock, no matter what it does.”

“Damn straight,” Andy replied, running upstairs to his room and living Patrick to sit at the kitchen table.

After a while, Andy returned with a small rock in one hand and a book in the other. The book had a slightly worn off-white cover, and was otherwise unremarkable. The rock was a dark gray, almost black color, and it had bits of shimmering oranges and red-browns scattered through it. It really was a cool rock. If someone had told Patrick it could be used to bring back the dead, he probably would have believed them.

“This what you’re looking for?” Andy asked.

“Yeah,” Patrick replied, gently accepting the stone and book from Andy.

“Alright. Take care, man,”

“Yeah. You too.”

Patrick waved awkwardly as he stepped out the door and down the steps of Andy’s house. As soon as he was back in his car, he started thinking about that diary. Maybe he was just getting himself too hyped up about it, but he was genuinely excited to read its contents. He really wanted to know what Pete had thought about him.

And so Patrick spent hours alone in his room, reading through the contents of Pete’s diary until it was dark outside. It was exactly how he’d imagined it. Maybe even more intense. 

There were deep, dark, intense ramblings in which Pete contemplated doing horrible things to himself. Suspicious reddish stains too blood-like to just be spilled juice implied that he may have given into these thoughts at least once. This made Patrick feel sick. He really hadn’t given much thought to Pete, or at least not nearly as much as he deserved. Pete had clearly been suffering more than he’d thought. Hell, he’d cut himself without Patrick even noticing. All Patrick could do now was pray that the bloodstains in the book represented only an isolated incident and not yet another awful characteristic of Pete’s mind.

But, spacing out these occurrences of borderline mental collapse were what could only be described as the lovesick scrawlings of a stupid teenager falling for someone for the first time. Pete wrote of watching Patrick from a distance, staring at his beautiful face and his soft cheeks and his-and Patrick didn’t find this nearly as creepy as he should have-cute ass. Every encounter Pete and Patrick had ever had seemed to be rewritten as a major event in Pete’s mind: simple conversations became magical moments in Pete’s otherwise dull life, and every touch was remembered as a glorious sign of some kind of unspoken love.

And of course, as Andy had promised, some pages in the book were borderline pornographic. Patrick felt his face going red as he read them, and he felt more than a little dirty, but he couldn’t stop. He had to know what Pete had thought about him. Especially in this context.

Patrick was surprised and more than a little relieved that he seemed to take the role of the dominant one in Pete’s fantasies. He wasn’t really sure he was comfortable with the idea of Pete secretly thinking about pinning him down and fucking him senseless. But Pete wishing for that to be done to him… it felt… unexplainably weird.

Whereas most of the time throughout his diary Pete seemed to just be making offhanded comments about wanting Patrick to fuck him, there were just a few entries in which Pete got a little more graphic. And wordy.

_“In my mind, he’s on top of me. Holding me down. Whispering filth into my ear while I beg for more. He’s inside me, and it’s beautiful. In my mind he is perfect: rhythmic, fast, and just a little bit rough. He cums inside me and I can feel it and it’s so fucking good. In my mind, at least. In real life, I’m just the sad loser lying naked in my bed, jerking off to the thought of it all.”_

Patrick hardly noticed that his hand had gone to his cock until he finally snapped out of his trance and realized that he’d unzipped his jeans and that he was embarrassingly hard. And for some weird reason- maybe it was the realization that he’d been fucking himself to Pete’s words, or more accurately the thought of Pete jerking off thinking about him (which when he thought about it was a really convoluted series of connections), maybe it was the recurring thought in his head that none of it could ever be real, or the small sliver of hope that it could be if he did everything right. Whatever the cause, Patrick started crying. It wasn’t enough to kill his boner, just a few light tears, but it still felt weird as hell. The whole situation was weird as hell. Patrick gingerly put the book down, as if someone was going to see what he was doing. He walked to the bathroom and finished himself off. While he’d never admit it, he was thinking about Pete the whole time.

Then he lied down on the bathroom floor, jeans and boxers still around his ankles. He started crying, half-naked and not exactly looking his best at that. As he brought knees to his chest and hunkered himself down onto the bath mat, he began to notice a light flooding into the dark bathroom.

Well, flooding is probably the wrong word. The light was gentle, warm, comforting. Patrick recognized it immediately.

“Pete,” he said, not even looking up. It came out choked up, barely audible through his sobs.

“Oh, Ricky, what happened to you?” Pete said sweetly. He kneeled down next to Patrick, just by his feet.

“I don’t know,” Patrick whimpered.

“Did you have a bad day?”

“No, actually.” Patrick began to calm down. Pete being there helped a lot. “I found a way to make you alive again.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s this spell, and I have all the materials, I just need to do it.”

“Why can’t you do it now?”

“I have to do it at your funeral.”

Pete paused. Patrick didn’t blame him; it couldn’t have been easy to hear the phrase “at your funeral” spoken aloud to you, referring to an actual upcoming event.

“Oh,” Pete sighed. He stayed kneeling by Patrick for a while. Patrick didn’t ignore him, but he didn’t really acknowledge him either. It felt awkward.

Which wasn’t helped by what Pete said next.

“If you don’t mind me asking, why are you naked?”

“I’m not naked,” Patrick grumbled, dodging the question.

“Why’d you take off your pants, then?”

Patrick let out a heavy sigh. He really didn’t want to talk about it, but this was Pete. He didn’t want to keep secrets from Pete.

“Look, a guy’s gotta jerk off sometimes, okay?”

“So you came to the bathroom, whacked off, and then lied down on the floor and cried?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Wow, Patrick,” Pete chuckled. “You sound like me.”

“Do I? Shit,” Patrick said, carefully standing up and pulling his pants back on. He didn’t look at Pete as he did this. The idea of Pete seeing his dick still felt too intimate somehow. Even though Patrick had seen Pete naked several times and thought nothing of it, that particular situation still felt off to him.

“I mean, someone’s gotta replace me,” Pete said matter-of-factly.

“I’m not replacing you. I’m going to bring you back,” Patrick promised. He left the bathroom and began walking back to his bedroom. Pete followed. Before Pete could enter his room, Patrick quickly tossed the diary behind his bed. It was better if Pete didn’t know he had it, he decided.

“You don’t know that that’s going to work, you know. It’s witchcraft. You know that’s bullshit, right?”

“Don’t talk like that. It has to work. Fuck, Pete, it has to!”

“But Ricky, I’m right here.” Pete sat down next to Patrick on the bed. “I’m with you right now.”

“It’s not the same,” Patrick sighed. “I want you to be… alive. I want to feel your heartbeat, I want to feel the warmth of your skin against mine, I want to see the blood rush to your face when you get embarrassed.”

“Come on, Patrick, it’s usually you getting embarrassed anyway.”

“It doesn’t matter! God dammit, Pete, I don’t want you disappearing on me when I wake up! Where did you go, anyway? I missed you, jackass.”

Pete bowed his head sadly.

“I’m sorry, Patrick. I didn’t want to leave you again, I swear. But I just… I was lying there, I couldn’t sleep, and suddenly everything went dark. Not like I fell asleep, like someone had turned out all the lights in my brain. And I was floating again. I was just there, in the darkness, like I was right after I died. It was… torture. It was so dark and quiet, I couldn’t see my own hands in front of my face, I couldn’t hear myself scream, I couldn’t feel anything at all. Which I guess is what I wanted when I did it, but… fuck. I regret it now. I really really do.”

“I know. I’m going to bring you back. You deserve a second chance, okay?”

“Okay,” Pete conceded. “Thank you so much, Ricky. I fucking love you.”

“I love you too, asshole.”

“Why do you always have to insult me when you say you love me?”

“I…” Patrick suddenly felt awful. “I don’t know. I think it’s just… hard for me to really admit I care.”

“Why is that, do you think?”

“I think… I’m just afraid to. I never realized I thought about you like that, Pete. Until it was too late.”

“Ricky…”

“I’m sorry, okay? I know I’m a jerk sometimes. But I really do love you, okay? You mean the fucking world to me. It crushed me to fucking pieces when you killed yourself, and that’s why I’m trying to bring you back. Because I’m selfish. I want to have you, I want you for myself, I want to be able to hold you and feel your pulse, and your warm breath on my neck, and I want to do all those things that you wanted me to do to you but I was too stupid to realize that I wanted that too, and I want to smother you with kisses to make up for all the ones I could’ve given you but I never did. Because I was stupid and young and I didn’t get it.”

“I… wow.” Pete stared into Patrick’s eyes, trying desperately to think of something to say. “Wait, what was that about what I wanted you to do to me?”

Patrick was blushing now. Typical. He tugged at the fabric of his shirt uncomfortably, as he always did when he didn’t really want to answer someone.

“Andy showed me your diary,” he admitted.

“Oh. Which one?”

“The one where you said… you…” Patrick didn’t want to go through this again, he really didn’t. Especially not with Pete watching. “You wanted me to do things to you. You know.”

“Sex things, Patrick?” Pete asked, grinning in the way he always did when that topic was brought up.

“Yes, sex things.” Patrick felt his face growing redder by the second.

“What’s stopping you from doing that right now?”

“You’re a ghost, Pete!” Patrick hollered. “I’m not fucking a ghost! That’s gross.”

“It’s not necrophilia if it’s not a corpse,” Pete argued.

“You’re disgusting,” Patrick sighed.

“Come on, Ricky, I’m just fucking with you. Or, well, I’m not. Not if you’re not cool with it.”

Patrick giggled.

“Look, if this all works… if you come back to life… I promise I’ll do whatever you want.”

“You promise?”

“Of course.”

“Fuck, Patrick, I love you.”

“Love you too, you… adorable dumbass.”

“That’s better,” Pete said sadly. “I mean, it’s not exactly “king among men”, but it's better than nothing.”

“Shut up,” Patrick told him. Then, in a gruffer and more imposing voice, he added. “I’ll call you whatever the hell I want.”

“Save it,” Pete told him. “As soon as I’m alive again you can use the hell out of that voice, but until then, save it. It’ll fuck up your throat, believe me.”

“Oh, you care about the condition of my throat, huh. I see how it is.”

“No, Patrick-come on!”

“Aww, I mean, I was looking forward to doing that.”

“You were _not_. This is ridiculous.” Pete flopped down on the bed, resting his head on the pillow. Patrick just had to lie down next to him.

“Just wait a couple days. See if you still think it’s ridiculous.” Patrick gently brushed his hand against Pete’s shoulder.

“Why’d you have to wait until I was dead to start thinking about this?” Pete asked.

“I told you,” Patrick replied. “I’m stupid.” He rested his head right under Pete’s chin, on his awfully vacant chest. He tried to imagine that it was warm and cozy and there was a gentle heartbeat pulsing in his ear as he nuzzled against Pete’s form. There was still nothing. It felt empty and horrible and made Patrick all the more excited to bring Pete back.

The next day was a drag. Patrick woke up without Pete by his side again, which was less of a shock this time and more of just a healthy dose of disappointment to start off the day. Patrick decided to look for something to wear to Pete’s funeral, both out of boredom and anticipation. He wasn’t exactly the type to dress up, but he had to this time. For Pete. He was actually considering just wearing Pete’s hoodie, or at least bringing it as some kind of comfort object. But he figured other people would think that was disrespectful, even though he knew Pete would at the very least think it was cute.

He couldn’t wait to see Pete again. Alive. He didn’t really know how the spell would work, but he imagined it just working instantly. As soon as he chanted those words, Pete would blink his eyes open, sit up in his casket, and hug him so tightly and warmly that he’d never want to let go.

Patrick had never really been good with funerals. He didn’t like looking at dead people, especially not people he had known personally. He’d been to a funeral for his grandmother, and seeing her withered corpse in that casket had almost made him vomit. But he knew Pete would be different. Pete wasn’t old and shrivelled. He would still be beautiful when he awoke. Patrick promised himself of that fact.

Patrick didn’t have much to do throughout that day. Mostly he just lounged around the house, trying to put some things in order, heating up the leftover Chinese takeout from the fridge (it wasn’t half bad considering it had been in there for days), even pulling out his guitar and strumming a few chords just to get his fingers back into a rhythm. If Pete was coming back, the two of them were going to have to play music together again. Even if the band itself couldn’t get back together, he and Pete at least had to keep up the tradition.

Of course Patrick also received a call from Andy that afternoon.

“Did you read Pete’s diary?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Patrick admitted. He felt shameful and dirty, as if someone had just asked him if he watched porn. It really wasn’t that far off.

“What did you think of…” Andy trailed off. Patrick could still hear him snickering over the phone, but at least he’d turned away somewhat.

“Look… what do you think?”

“Don’t tell me you...”

Patrick was silent.

“Oh my god.” Andy sounded like he was holding back huge amounts of laughter.

“Hey, there are worse things you could enable me with.”

“I know, but… come on! It’s Pete. He wasn’t exactly a fucking renaissance poet.”

“You don’t need to be a renaissance poet to be jerk-worthy.”

“Wow. This is just TMI.”

“Hey, you brought it up.”

“I did, didn’t I.”

“Uhhh… speaking of our favorite non-renaissance poet…”

“Not his junk, I hope.”

“No, not his junk. Damn, you’re insensitive!”

“Fuck. Patrick, I…”

“No, it’s fine. Really.”

“Are you going to his funeral tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I think I’m going to take your advice. Give him one last goodbye.”

“That sounds good. I’m sure he’d like hearing it, wherever he is.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in that kind of shit.”

“I don’t know, man. I just want him to still be out there somewhere, you know? So when he’s buried in the ground, I know he’s not just going to turn into dirt and be gone. So I can know that he’s still a person somehow.”

“I get that,” Patrick sighed. He thought of Pete floating in that senseless black void, and it weirdly brought him comfort. Because he really was still a person, somewhere out there, wherever he was. And soon he’d be a person in Patrick’s arms, his heart and his body and his spirit all there with him. “I mean, I think he’s always going to be a person. As long as we remember him, he’s not going to just decompose into nothing. There’s still going to be something there.”

“I… I think you’re right. He’s alive in our hearts, huh.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“Speaking of which, you haven’t seen any more ghosts, have you?”

“No,” Patrick lied. “That rock you gave me really must be working.”

“I guess so,” Andy laughed. “Glad you’re doing better, man.”

“Me too. I’ll see you tomorrow, alright?”

“Yeah. Take care, dude.”

Patrick felt a little warm inside when he hung up. Andy was good at talking when he actually bothered to do so, Patrick had to at least admit that. If Pete really was gone for good, Andy would’ve been a great comfort to him.

But Pete wasn’t gone. Patrick knew that. He was going to bring him back, he had to. For Andy and Joe, for himself, for Pete too.

Patrick was ready for Pete’s arrival that night. It was the last time he was going to see him as a ghost (he hoped, he really really hoped), so he was at least going to make something out of it. The experience of being with ghost-Pete wasn’t exactly comforting, but at least the gentle ghostly glow Pete had surrounding him made for some cozy lighting.

Pete appeared beside Patrick while he was lying in bed. He arrived without a sound, and Patrick couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he’d appeared-he’d simply become gradually aware of Pete’s presence in the room. It was a comforting presence, even though it lacked the warmth or breath or pulse that usually comes with the comforting presence of a friend. Still, the fact that Pete was Pete and that he was by his side would always be comforting to Patrick.

“Tomorrow’s the big day,” Patrick said, half to Pete and half to himself.

“You know, I always wanted someone to call my funeral ‘the big day’,” Pete replied. Patrick could hear his smile on his voice. It was comforting.

“I’ve always wanted to make your dreams come true,” Patrick said without thinking. He was nearly punching himself at how cheesy it sounded, but he knew deep down that he meant it.

“Awww, Ricky, you’re too sweet,” Pete cooed. “Honestly, it’s okay if you can’t bring me back. I’m happy just staying with you every night.”

“What about that dark place? Don’t you want to get out of there forever?”

“Come on. You know I’ve always been in a dark place. That didn’t change when I died. It’s okay, really.”

“Fuck, Pete,” Patrick grumbled, rolling over and putting an arm across Pete’s vacant chest. “It’s not okay.”

“No, but I can deal. I always have.”

“You have not! You killed yourself, Pete! Did you forget about that? Did you forget about the bloodstains in your diary from when you cut yourself? Did you forget about that night in LA? Because I didn’t. God, I _can’t_ forget that. Even if I wanted to.”

“What about LA?” Pete asked.

“Oh, come on! That time I opened the door and you’d punched through the bathroom mirror? You were bleeding all over yourself in the shower. You had bottles and bottles of pills spilling out on the bathroom counter, there was blood and pills and broken glass just everywhere and I thought you’d done something and I was so worried. And you just said ‘go away, Ricky, I can handle this myself.’ You had to know you couldn’t handle it, right? Just like always.”

“Ricky…”

“Don’t ‘Ricky’ me! I-I’m going to bring you back, but you’re going to have to promise me something, alright? You have to stop pretending you can handle everything on your own. If you could have just admitted that in the first place we wouldn’t be in this mess.” Patrick realized he was crying. He’d started sobbing into Pete’s shoulder, like Pete had always done to him.

“I’m so sorry,” Pete whispered. “I don’t deserve you, Patrick. I don’t deserve fucking anything.”

“And don’t talk about yourself like that either. You deserve the world, baby. You deserve so much. You don’t even know.”

“I deserve to get punched, maybe.”

“Maybe so. But you also deserve hugs and kisses and more love than you could ever imagine.” Patrick smiled, tears still slowly dripping down his face.

“Patrick… whatever happens tomorrow… I love you, okay?”

“It’s going to work, Pete. I promise.”

“But if it doesn’t. I’ll still visit you every night. I’ll still love you.”

“I love you too, Pete, but it’s going to work.”

“Okay.”

Patrick fell asleep resting against Pete. He couldn’t wait until tomorrow night, when he’d be able to fall asleep next to Pete and feel the warmth of his body against him and the gentle pulse of his heartbeat.

Patrick was barely fazed by Pete’s disappearance when he awoke. He put on his outfit: a black button-up and black dress pants with some black socks and sneakers. Yeah, some people would call sneakers disrespectful. But they were black, at the very least, and Patrick couldn’t stand dress shoes for more than a few minutes. They hurt his feet, and he didn’t want to be limping up to Pete when it came time for him to come back to life.

When Patrick gathered up the materials (the rock, the spices, Pete’s diary, and a piece of paper with the words to the chant written on it), he realized something quite crucial. His pockets weren’t big enough to hold everything. So he decided to improvise, searching around his house for a satchel or purse or something. It wasn’t exactly his typical choice of fashion, but it would have to work for this. He figured he’d shove a pack of tissues in it as an excuse.

There was a little brown purse in the back of his closet. It had probably been left there by some girl he’d tried to date, or (far more likely) the previous owners of the house. Still, it was the perfect size. Patrick tossed everything-the rock, the spices, the page he’d copied down from the book, and Pete’s diary-into it haphazardly and sat down on his steps waiting until it was a reasonable time to leave.

The funeral was held in a small old brick building, not a church but probably some building affiliated with it. Inside were just a few rooms, all similar in size. Pete’s funeral was held in the one at the end of the hallway. There were a few rows of folding chairs set up in front of a wooden platform that looked disturbingly like a stage. Pete’s body lay in a coffin on an elevated platform on the stage, and he was dressed in a suit and tie. The thought of Pete wearing a suit and tie and going to church was almost funny to Patrick. He was pretty sure Pete hadn’t set foot in a church since he was a kid, and the only suits Pete ever wore were either made of obnoxiously colored fabric, covered in glitter, or both.

There was a large display set up on a table on one side of the room. It was made up of pictures of Pete, a Pete that was far from the one Patrick knew. Most of these pictures were of Pete just out of high school, wearing clothes that were very unlike him-more plain suits and ties. These were likely from events, graduations or weddings or anything that demanded formal attire. The Pete Patrick knew would never have worn anything like that (or held such a normal pose) unless it was absolutely required. It was beyond Patrick why people wanted to remember Pete as this boring, everyday kid.

Only one picture on the table was even remotely connected to the real Pete that Patrick really loved. It was a picture of him with Patrick and Joe. His hair was cut very short. Patrick and Joe looked like kids next to him, and they were all wearing questionable t-shirts. All three of them were smiling from ear to ear. Patrick remembered that day. Before Andy joined the band, before they’d done a real tour, before they were even officially called Fall Out Boy. They were just three kids, about to play a show at some restaurant in Chicago. Pete’s mom had taken that picture. She had told them all how proud of them she was. Patrick was sweating so much from nerves that he’d looked practically soaked in that photo. But Pete… he looked so much like himself. He was perfect.

Patrick stared at that photo for too long. He wondered if they’d ever get to have that again. Even if he brought Pete back, there was no guarantee of what would happen afterwards. Would everything go back to normal, would the band get back together, would everything that was ever wrong just go away? Or would he and Pete be outcasts forever, the only ones who really understood all of this crazy shit?

In the back of the room was a folding table set with foods as depressing as the event itself. A pitcher of water and some white paper cups. A bowl of crackers, the gross kind that you’re supposed to put cheese on. The point of this drab snack table was lost on Patrick. Still, several people gathered around it, all dressed in black and talking quietly. Patrick was surprised by how many he knew. Joe and Andy, of course. Pete’s parents and his siblings. Some more of Pete’s relatives, some of whom Patrick had met once or twice. A couple of guys who Patrick was pretty sure had played with Pete in Arma Angelus. Some other people they’d met on tour, and who Pete had apparently hung out with quite a bit. Patrick didn’t want to talk to anyone. Instead he went up to see Pete.

Pete didn’t look peaceful lying there in that casket. He looked dead is how he looked. Patrick still felt sickened by it, even though he promised himself he wouldn’t. Without his ghostly shimmer, a dead Pete just looked… sad. Patrick tried not to pay attention to that. He checked to make sure no one was watching him, then he opened his purse, placed the rock on Pete’s chest, tucked his diary into the coffin with him, and dashed the herbs and spices over him. Then he sat down in one of the folding chairs in the front row so as not to draw as much attention to what he was doing, and began to read out the incantation.

It wasn’t in English (Latin, maybe?), and Patrick was surprised at how well he could pronounce it. He repeated it three times, then sat back and waited.

He had no idea how long it was meant to take. It felt like an eternity. People started sitting down around him. A man in a fancy robe-some kind of priest, probably-walked up to the stage and started speaking about how “we all miss Peter” and “he’s in a better place now” and “we should remember that he had a good life” (that last one was probably just what he said about every dead guy who came through the door. All Patrick was remembering in that moment was that Pete spent a lot of his life suffering). Also, Patrick couldn’t help but remember hearing at one point that killing yourself was a sin. Did the preacher even know what fate had befallen Pete? Or was that just an old-fashioned thing, and people didn’t believe it anymore? Whatever. Pete wasn’t in a better place. He was probably in that void, waiting to come back.

_Come on, Pete. Hurry up._

People started going up and giving speeches. Pete’s brother talked about watching Pete struggle with so much in his life (hey, finally some honesty), and how he was glad Pete didn’t have to suffer anymore. It made Patrick feel a little bad about bringing him back and making him suffer again, but then he remembered the dark void that awaited Pete if he failed the ritual. Pete’s mother said a lot of things. Patrick didn’t remember much of it. She was crying by the end. Even Joe went up and gave a speech. He talked about his days with Pete in the band, how he always thought they were going to travel the world together. That one admittedly made Patrick tear up. He came close to actually needing the tissues he’d brought.

After another family member gave a speech, the priest returned and started talking again. Prayers, mostly. Everyone seemed to be so engrossed in them they didn’t hear the noises coming from Pete’s coffin.

But Patrick heard them. He stopped pretending to say a prayer he didn’t know and looked up.

Pete had stirred. He had sat up in his coffin. He was looking out at the group of mourners in folding chairs with the same gentle, warm, definitely not glassy, caramel-colored eyes Patrick knew. This was when Patrick was finally put over the edge. He started full out bawling.

Naturally, this wasn’t completely out of the ordinary at a funeral. People cry a lot. But the moment someone looked up to see if Patrick was okay and noticed Pete rising out of his casket, everything went to hell.

The woman-Patrick didn’t know her-screamed. The priest gave her an annoyed look for interrupting his prayer, but it didn’t take long for him along with everyone else in the room to notice what had prompted her scream. People stood up. The priest slowly backed away. Others were simply frozen with shock. Patrick stood up to, but not as a motion to escape. He began walking towards Pete.

Pete extended an arm to Patrick as he stepped onto the stage. Patrick rushes to grab it. It was warm. Patrick could feel the pulse in Pete’s wrist, and this only served to intensify his sobs. Pete leaned out of the coffin against his chest. Patrick just held him close. He could feel Pete’s heartbeat in his own chest as he slowly pulled Pete up. Pete was very weak and tired. This was to be expected of someone who had been dead for three days, but it was still a bit of a surprise to Patrick. When he finally managed to lift Pete fully out of the coffin, holding him like a baby in his arms the same way he had when he’d held him in the parking lot days before, Patrick turned around towards the crowd. Several people had fled the room. More were waiting at the door. Andy had an astonished look on his face like most people still present, but his was wholly directed at Patrick.

“Did you do this?” he asked.

“Sort of,” Patrick replied. “Now move. He needs to eat something. Drink something. You would too if you spent three days dead.”

With Pete leaning against him, Patrick filled one of the paper cups with water and offered it to Pete. He lead him to sit in one of the folding chairs, still ignoring the astonished audience looking on. Pete accepted the water, drinking it eagerly. Patrick offered him some crackers, but Pete pushed them away.

“Those are gross,” he said, smiling. It was his voice, beautiful and pure and gentle as ever.

“I know, but you have to eat something. You have to get your strength back.”

“Fine. Give.” Pete lazily reached out his hand. He took a few crackers from Patrick and immediately shoved them in his mouth. Andy and Joe and a few of Pete’s family members remained in the room, watching the scene before them with open-mouthed, wide-eyes stares. Patrick could understand their shock, but he told himself that it would pass. Soon they’d just be grateful that Pete was alive and everything would go back to normal.

Patrick sat down next to Pete and rested his head on his shoulder. He could feel Pete’s pulse in his neck. He’d never noticed it when he and Pete had leaned on each other before Pete died, but now it was everything.

“I told you it would work, didn’t I?” Patrick said. He couldn’t even be smug about it. He was just glad to have Pete back.

“You did. I should’ve just trusted you, Ricky.”

“It’s okay. All that matters is that you’re back now.”

“Yeah. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Pete.”

Patrick and Pete stayed seated for a while as Pete finished his water. Gradually the people who remained in the room grew less shocked and frozen, and some even began to approach the two of them. Andy was the first to actually speak to them.

“Well. You really did it, didn’t you?”

“Yup,” Patrick replied, not leaving Pete’s shoulder as he looked up at Andy.

“Guess you didn’t need my help after all.”

“It’s cool. I know you were just trying to help. I mean, I don’t blame you for thinking I was crazy.”

“Yeah. This is pretty crazy,” Joe added.

“So… Pete,” Andy said, finally addressing his newly revived friend. “Were you really a ghost? Or was that just Patrick’s imagination?”

“I sure was,” Pete told him. “I’ve got some stories about Patrick from that time.” He smirked. It was the same shit-eating grin Pete always seemed to have when he was up to something. Patrick never realized how much he’d missed it.

“Come on, Pete,” he said, gently punching him on the arm. “I was… emotionally vulnerable.”

“You can say that again,” Pete laughed.

“Idiot,” Patrick grumbled. Pete sure was back and cheekier than ever.

“How much longer do we have to stay here?” Pete asked. “I mean, I kind of did just… crash my own funeral.”

“Good point. Wanna head over to my house? I still have those gross strawberry drinks you like in my fridge.”

“Sure,” Pete replied. He stood up slowly, still not quite used to walking around after not inhabiting a body for three days straight. “I’m gonna take my hoodie back too. You won’t need it anymore. You’re going to have me around all the time, whether you like it or not.”

“Oh, believe me, I’ll like it,” Patrick shot back. He lead Pete out of the funeral building and to his car. Pete seatbelted himself into the passenger seat-this time seatbelts were absolutely necessary-and Patrick drove off back towards his house.

“We’ll see how much you like me after a week of me not leaving you alone. Gotta make up for lost time.”

“Come on, Pete, you were gone three days. And I still saw you at night. Sort of.”

“Three days my ass. It felt like an eternity.”

Patrick had to admit, he was right.

Pete practically waltzed through the door of Patrick’s house and ran to the fridge. He pulled out one of those gross strawberry drinks, and immediately a strong chemical smell filled the air.

“I think those things are giving you brain damage, Pete.”

“Come on, they’re good! Why did you buy them anyway if you weren’t going to drink them?”

“They reminded me of you. I bought them because I missed you, jackass.”

“Well, they’re mine now.”

“Keep them. I don’t want them now that you’re back.”

“Thanks, man.”

The two lounged around the kitchen for a while. There wasn’t really any catching up to do, Patrick hadn’t exactly done anything interesting while Pete was gone. Pretty soon, though, it was lunchtime.

“You wanna call Joe and Andy? We never wound up going to that pizza place. I think we should do that right now,” Pete suggested

“Good idea,” Patrick agreed. He dialed Joe and Andy and asked them if they wanted pizza. They seemed happy to oblige.

The pizza outing was a bit awkward, which was to be expected.

“So… how was being dead?” Joe asked.

“Pretty boring, actually. Although I did get to see Patrick half-naked crying on the floor while I was a ghost. That was pretty cool,” Pete told him.

“Hey! That’s supposed to be our secret!” Patrick yelled. He wasn’t that mad. In fact, he was smiling.

“Half-naked? Which half?” Joe asked.

“The bottom half,” Pete whispered. All four of them shared a chuckle.

“You’re gross, Pete,” Patrick said.

“Oh, come on, you’ve all seen me naked.”

“That time you were standing over that doorway trying to pee on people? That wasn’t exactly our choice, Pete,” Joe interjected.

“Point remains.”

“Whatever.”

“So… is the band back together?” Andy asked.

“I guess so. I mean, we’re all here now,” Patrick said.

“How are we going to explain that one of our members came back from the dead?” Joe asked.

“You don’t. I was never dead, it was just a media hoax,” Pete suggested. The others nodded in agreement.

“Yeah. That shit happens all the time, right?” Patrick added.

“Right,” Pete replied.

“Wow. I’m just… glad that you’re back, man,” Joe said.

“Thank Patrick. He’s the one who did whatever weird dark ritual brought me back.”

“Aww, it was nothing,” Patrick said, blushing.

“No, really. Thanks, Patrick,” Joe told him. Andy nodded in agreement.

Patrick didn’t really care much for the flattery, but he was pretty fucking happy to have Pete back.

After the pizza place, he and Pete were driving home when Pete brought up something else.

“Hey, we were going to go for coffee!”

“Come on, I know you were just using that as an excuse to hang out with me. We’re hanging out right now.”

“I still want coffee,” Pete said, pouting.

“Fine.” Patrick drove the two of them to Starbucks. He didn’t order anything, but Pete treated himself to a mocha. Extra whipped cream, because he’s Pete.

As Pete sipped his coffee, the two stared intently into each other’s eyes. Patrick didn’t really have much to say, but he was content just looking at Pete. Man, he was beautiful. Even in that suit that was so unlike him he was beautiful.

“Don’t you want to change out of that suit?” Patrick asked.

“I will eventually. I think it suits me in the meantime.”

“I don’t know. It’s not bright pink or covered in sequins.”

“You make a point,” Pete laughed.

Pete finished his coffee in silence. He looked so peaceful, and not in the dead body kind of way. In the serene, happy kind of way. Like everything in his life was just perfect and he had nothing more important to do than drink a mediocre coffee with his best friend.

As they walked out of the coffee shop, Pete was quick to remind Patrick of something.

“Hey, remember what you promised me?”

“What?”

“You know. About my diary, and how you said you’d do whatever I wanted…”

“God dammit, Pete. You’ve been alive again for two hours and already all you can think about is fucking me?”

“Hey, you know I was thinking about that before I was even dead.”

“That’s not better.”

“Come on, Ricky. You promised.”

“Tonight. If I’m feeling like it.”

“Okay.”

Patrick had to talk Pete out of ordering pizza for dinner, because “We literally just had pizza, Pete! You can’t eat pizza for every meal!”

“I can and I will.”

“You know, you have a body. Did you forget how that works in the three days that you didn’t? If you eat nothing but pizza it’s just gonna shut down.”

“Pwease, Patwick, I don’t wanna eat my vegetables!” Pete whined, going doe-eyed and looking up at Patrick. Patrick sighed.

“Cut that out. You’re not cute.”

“Meanie.” Pete crossed his arms.

“You know, had you told me your deepest fantasies involved role-playing as a kid who didn’t want to eat his vegetables, I might have thought twice about bringing you back,” Patrick joked.

Pete went red in the face.

“Shut up! I was just fucking with you, it’s not-“

“I know. But that doesn’t change the fact we’re not having pizza for the second time today. Now, do you want to go out? Or should I order something?”

“What kind of places deliver?”

“There’s a Chinese place, there’s-“

“Chinese sounds good. I could go for some fried rice right now.”

“Sounds good. That’s got vegetables in it, at least.” It completely slipped Patrick’s mind that he’d just eaten Chinese food the previous day, but he didn’t have the heart to deny Pete anything else.

The food arrived twenty minutes later. Patrick nearly dropped it as he was thanking the delivery man and bringing it back to the kitchen table. Pete laughed at him, and Patrick shot him a dirty look. He shoved the styrofoam container of fried rice across the table towards Pete.

“Eat your vegetables,” he said, smirking. Pete shook his head.

“I’m never gonna live that down, am I?”

“You told Joe and Andy you saw me crying on the floor with my pants down. This is just payback.”

“Not fair. I didn’t even see your dick.”

“Liar.”

“I am not! I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

“You’re weird, Pete,” Patrick said, shaking his head. He knew he was blushing, so he avoided looking up at Pete.

After they ate dinner, Pete took a shower because Patrick kept telling him that he smelled like a morgue.

“I don’t mean you smell like a corpse! You smell like whatever they put on you so you didn’t smell like a corpse, but that isn’t much better.”

“Not a fan of formaldehyde, are you, Patrick?” Pete asked. “You never dissected anything in science class?”

“That’s beside the point. I don’t want my boyfriend smelling like a lab specimen. And besides, I’m talking about the perfume, not the formaldehyde. Lavender is gross, dude.”

Pete’s brain caught on the word “boyfriend”. He was too giddy to say anything else, so he just went to shower and left Patrick waiting in his room.

Pete returned wearing a towel. Patrick’s initial thought was that he didn’t even bother getting dressed since he was still awaiting that sex Patrick had promised him, but then he realized the only clothes Pete had were the ones he’d been wearing at his funeral.

“You need clothes, don’t you,” Patrick remarked.

“Do I?”

“Pete, as much as I love seeing you naked, it’s the middle of February. You can’t just run around naked or you’ll catch a cold. I can loan you a pair of pajamas.”

“So… you don’t want to…”

Patrick sighed. He _did_ want to. But something in the back of his mind was telling him it was a bad idea.”

“Look Pete, I don’t even have lube or anything…”

“You have Vaseline?”

“Pete, gross.”

“No, seriously! Everyone uses it as lube.”

“Who’s this ‘everyone’ you’re watching have sex?” Patrick laughed.

“Shut up! If you don’t want to, it’s okay. I’m just saying if you do we’ll make it work.”

“I do,” Patrick sighed. “I do want to. But this is all just so… crazy. It doesn’t feel real.”

“It is. It’ll feel alright soon. Soon everything is going to go back to normal, we’ll forget this ever happened.”

“But what if you do something stupid again? Is it even possible to bring you back twice?”

“Let’s hope we never have to find out. I have you to help me. You did call me your boyfriend earlier.”

“Pete, I know you want it to, but… me dating you isn’t going to fix you. There’s something more, there’s a bigger problem you need to address.”

“I don’t want to talk about my mental health right now, Patrick.”

“No, this is… this is important, Pete. I’ve read your diary. You’re…”

“I’m sick. I’m broken. There’s something wrong with me. Blah, blah, blah. I don’t need you to give me a fucking lecture about all of it. You want to help me, you can fuck me. And if you don’t want to, just… lay with me for a while. I don’t want a doctor, Patrick. I want you.”

Patrick grabbed Pete’s hand and pulled him onto his lap. The towel fell from his waist, leaving him naked and sitting on Patrick’s thighs. Pete felt his face go red.

“Patrick, what-“

“Shhh. Let me fix you.”

Pete leaned into Patrick’s chest. Patrick ran a hand down his bare back, tracing down his spine and eventually brushing his ass. Pete twitched. He was hoping Patrick didn’t notice it.

“How do you feel?” Patrick asked.

“Good. You feel good.”

“Not me. You.” Patrick put his other hand to Pete’s head, threading his fingers into his hair. “I want you to talk to me.”

“I feel… different. Like that dark place is still inside me.”

“That dark place where you went when you died?”

“Yeah,” Pete replied, his voice stifled a bit. He sounded sad.

“I want to fix you. I want to heal you. I want to make that darkness go away. How can I do that?”

“You know.”

“Tell me.”

“God dammit, fuck me, Patrick. Please.”

“Alright. Lay down for me.”

Pete moved from Patrick’s lap, lying down next to him on the bed. He was on his side, his arms against his chest.

“On your stomach, please,” Patrick said. He was still calm, but there was a coarse growl to his voice. That same growl Pete had told him to save for a time just like this.

“Wait here,” Patrick told him. “I’ll be right back.” He planted a kiss on Pete’s neck before walking away. Pete felt cold and vulnerable laid out on the bed like that. He almost felt scared when he heard footsteps approaching him. This was supposed to be what he’d dreamed of for years, but he didn’t know how to feel. He never thought those dreams would really come true.

Then he felt two fingers gently slide into his ass, and he felt okay.

Patrick pulled his fingers in and out of Pete, and Pete kept making little noises of pleasure as he did so.

“Better?” Patrick asked sweetly.

“Fuck. Fuck, yeah.” Pete replied.

“Want me to fuck you for real now?” Patrick asked.

Pete shuddered at the thought. He arched his back in anticipation, fuck, he was ready. This was happening. This was really happening.

Patrick was still wearing his pajama shirt. Pete briefly felt soft cotton brush against his skin as Patrick climbed on top of him. He wasn’t too surprised. Patrick had never liked being shirtless. But, just like in the bathroom a few days prior, Patrick had nothing on his lower half. Patrick’s warm thighs wrapped around Pete just before his cock slid into him. Pete whimpered happily. He was at a loss for words. This was really happening, oh my god, it was really happening.

Pete felt out of it, but in a good way. Not in the way he’d felt in the void, not a senseless nothingness out of it, but rather he was feeling so much at once his brain sort of overloaded. Patrick was perfect. He wasn’t as loud as Pete had imagined him, all that came from his mouth were little grunts and the occasional growl of something like “Pete, you’re so good”. Other than that, though, he was just how Pete had imagined him. Patrick came hard and fast inside of Pete, and Pete gasped. It had caught him off guard. Patrick pulled out and sat down beside Pete, who was still getting over the feeling. He collapsed, shock coursing through him as he rolled over and finished himself off, most of the mess going on his thighs rather than Patrick’s sheets. But he supposed that was okay. Pete lied there for a while, breathing heavily. Patrick ran his fingers across Pete’s sweaty face.

“Feel any better, baby?” he asked.

“Yes. God, yes. That was perfect.”

“I’m glad I could help.” Patrick leaned down and kissed Pete on the cheek gently. “Why don’t you go to the bathroom and clean yourself off?” he suggested, gesturing at the mess on Pete’s thighs. “I’ll bring you some pajamas.”

Pete obeyed wordlessly. He went to the bathroom and did his best to clean the mess off himself. Then he sat down on the rug and waited for Patrick.

The door was unlocked, and Patrick didn’t even bother to knock before letting himself in. He was fully clothed now, which Pete had to admit was disappointing. There was a set of blue flannel pajamas flung over his arm. He set them down next to Pete.

“Here. You can put those on. Come back to bed when you’re done.”

“Okay.”

Pete waited for a few seconds for Patrick to leave, then he put on the pajamas and returned to Patrick’s bedroom where Patrick was already lying down under a blanket. Pete crawled underneath with him.

“You’re perfect, Patrick. You know that, right?”

“So it was everything you dreamed it would be?”

“I’m not just talking about the sex. The sex was fucking amazing, but… you. You’re beautiful. You’re sweet and caring and gentle and I love you so fucking much.”

“Wow. Pete…”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. I know you love me.”

“I do, Petey. I really do.”

Pete waited for the catch, the “that’s why I need you to fix yourself”, but it didn’t come. Not this time.

“Even if I never heal… will you still love me?”

“Pete, I was ready to keep on loving you forever when I thought you were dead and gone. Of course I’ll still care about you even if you’re sick.”

“I’m sorry I’m sick, Patrick.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. I’m here to help you.”

“You did a really good job taking care of me.”

“Only the best for you, sweetheart.”

“See? I knew you had a mushy side.” Pete grinned.

“Every side of me is mushy, Pete,” Patrick laughed.

“Oh, come on,” Pete said, mushing himself into Patrick, snuggling up against him as close as physically possible. “You know what I meant.”

“I really do, baby. I have to be sweet with you. You deserve that.”

“I’m fragile. I need something soft to hold me.”

“Exactly.” Patrick wrapped his arms around Pete, hugging him tightly. Pete nuzzled into his shoulder. Patrick could feel Pete’s heartbeat against him, and his body was warm and alive. He felt so comfortable with Pete.

Now that Pete was back, Patrick promised himself he’d never let him go. Never again. He held Pete as tight as he could.

“I’m never gonna let you go, Pete,” Patrick whispered.

“I’m never going to leave again,” Pete replied.

“Do you promise me?”

“Of course. I promise I won’t leave you again. Because I love you, Ricky. You mean the world to me. I wouldn’t trade you for anything.”

“I love you too, Pete. I’m glad you’re okay.”

The two of them slept as close together as humanly possible. It was absolutely necessary after they’d had to spend that time apart. Being apart hurt too much. They had to be together, and the closer together, the better.


End file.
